


Balcony

by d__T, Kalashnikorn



Series: The Hardest Part is Letting Go of Your Dreams [1]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4980013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalashnikorn/pseuds/Kalashnikorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indigo deals with the loss of a friend.</p><p>Prof Tezuka is Kalashnikorn's whackjob OC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balcony

Indigo showed up late to office hours hadn’t shown up to class, bleary eyed and wearing a hoodie over his flannel in lieu of an actual winter jacket. Textbook with pages of notes that don’t belong to him between the covers tucked under under his arm, he sidled into her office, discomfort radiating off of him.

“Prof, I’m sorry. I meant to do the assignment. I meant.” He shuts up. Excuses, excuses, a waste of breath on her, just like it’s a waste of breath on the team. He looks like he’s fighting back tears.

Professor Tezuka glanced at him and cracked an askew smile. “Believe it or not, kiddo, I remember undergrad. And no, there weren’t actual dinosaurs for us to study back then.“ She chuckled at her own joke absently as she filed through emails. North was a good kid, in her eyes. Good enough, anyway.

“It’s a few hours past due, but I’ll still take it.” She patted the stack of papers on the desk beside her. “Lemme know next time if you need an extension or have a valid medical excuse. I’ll gladly give you more time.” She rattled off the canned spiel. “I don’t expect Intro to Paleontology to be at the top of anyone’s list. Hell, it’s not at the top of mine.“ She slumped back into her rolling chair.

“Y’ okay, kid? Somethin’ gettin you down?“

It’s one thing to read it on his phone when he wakes up, a text received 3:41 AM and barely intelligible. It’s another to receive the email in the official letterhead. And it’s entirely different to trudge through the slush past the flags at half mast and think of all the times he’d deleted those emails without reading the name in the subject, to think of all the people who deleted the email and forgot instantly and are now wondering why the flags are lowered.

“Yeah.” He stops. She motions for him to go on. He doesn’t.

Intro to Paleontology. It’s in his gen ed slot for this semester ‘cause he’d heard the prof was decent, and a whack job. Also, dinosaurs. Who the hell doesn’t like a class about dinosaurs, really? He thinks of just leaving since he’d already made the little lie for her but she hadn’t pressured him to say more so he takes a risk. He stays.

He leans against the doorframe, shoulder hunched and cracked knuckles white and red from how tight he’s clutching the textbook. He speaks suddenly, a pained tumble of words. “His name wasn’t Alex.” Shallow unsteady breath. “We called him AK. Out of all of us, he was gonna be the one to succeed. We were all rootin’ for him.” He snorts.

“They don’t say in the emails, how they die. Three weeks in the hospital. Doctors said he’d never wake up and pulled the plug on him last night.”

He chokes up, sniffs.

“He was supposed to be the one.”

“Fuck.” 

“Three weeks and I wasn’t even there. Not when he fell, not when they killed him.”

He looked anywhere but Professor Tezuka. Didn’t mean to say that much but once he opened his mouth, well. Sometimes the words can’t be stopped.

She nodded, eyes fixed not on the young man, but somewhere past him. That was some heavy shit North was dealing with. Most students treated a flat tire, a breakup, or a lost dog like the apocalypse. In the back of her mind, she knew that each of her students had a life, with troubles and fears and friends, all that human stuff. But for the sake of efficiency, their names weren’t Brian (or Brain), Ashley, or Jake, they were absent or present. Tezuka took a cursory glance at that email - the boy’s name may have crossed her attendance sheets before. Still, it always stung to see someone younger than her son have their life cut short. Nonetheless, it was hard to put names to faces, especially when you teach four separate hundred-student intro classes per semester.

So yeah, she was guilty.

“I’m… Terribly sorry.“ Those words felt horribly insufficient. She’d never been good with emotions, at least when it came to virtual strangers. Her own child she could handle quite well, and close friends, too. Nevertheless, she gestured for him to have a seat. Voice quivering, she looked back at her computer. “One of the exams gets dropped, you know. One of the labs, too.“ She scratched her head.

Rising from her seat, as if driven by some instinct, she walked over to the young man and gave him a grandmotherly hug.

It’s unexpected and rather reminiscent of his aunt’s hugs; small and strong. He stiffens before forcefully relaxing himself and leaning just a little against her shoulder.

“…sorry, Professor.”

It’s a moment before he leans out of the hug.

“…thanks, Professor.” Thanks for listening, thanks for dropping that exam even though I’ve already tanked one and can’t use that, thanks for the hug.

He can feel the flickering that's been plaguing him in his veins, maybe his pulse in his still-cold fingers, maybe something else. Rising, he walks with aimless purpose from the office.

**Author's Note:**

> In memory of Daniel, the name in the email I received the morning after I wrote this.
> 
> In memory of AK, the boy who fell and the source of this story.


End file.
